


The Crimson Waste Job

by BrightYellowBumblebee



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Catra: I enjoy bad acting because it causes people pain, F/F, Kyle: will crush on anything if it stands still long enough, Lonnie: I'm not paid enough for any of this, Multi, No matter what universe I put her in Adora is a mess, Rogelio: standing still long enough, Showing the Horde cadets some love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29048469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightYellowBumblebee/pseuds/BrightYellowBumblebee
Summary: Sometimes, bad guys make the best good guysMastermind, Hitter, Hacker, Grifter, ThiefLeverage fusion!
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-ra)(hinted), Kyle/Lonnie/Rogelio (She-ra)(hinted)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	The Crimson Waste Job

**Author's Note:**

> So, I think this was a fever dream I had when I was down with COVID and it refused to leave me alone until it was finished.

The ambience in the Laughing Swan Inn was cheerful. Rustic wooden tables were scattered around the room, surfaces scarred from years of service but clean. Behind the bar, a cheerful Scorpioni woman was serving drinks, her claws skilfully grasping bottlenecks and glasses. 

Seated at the bar was a blonde woman. Her hair pulled back into a ponytail, her fringe dusting before her blue eyes as she stared at the woman before her. The red claws poured her drink, higher and higher, until she raised a thin, pale finger to stop it.

“I’m sorry, but this really is your last drink,” the Scorpioni woman said, dark eyes apologetic. The blonde nodded, head dancing with the motion and the room wavered. She raised her full glass in acknowledgement, content to drown her sorrows temporarily. 

Drown her memories of Mara.

“Excuse me,” a voice called and she turned to face it. Closing her eyes temporarily as the world spun dangerously with her movement, she opened them to be greeted by gleaming red eyes mere centimetres from hers. His white skin was offset by his shock of blue hair as he reached out a hand to her. In a stupor, she shook it and his eyes gleamed maliciously.

“I’m Hordak,” he said. “Aren’t you Adora?” she fumbled at his words, desperately trying to focus her eyes so there was only one of him. She nodded dumbly and some suspicion started to permeate through her drunken haze.

“I’ve heard all about you and your military career. I heard all about your retrieval in Plumeria and how you averted the Salineas disaster.” Now, she was _really_ suspicious. Very few people even knew she existed, let alone what she did and the details. Just who was this man?

He continued to wax about her achievements, as if she didn’t know them, a predatory gleam in his red eyes. “You must have saved Etheria hundreds of times by now.” He said, lips curling in insincerity.

“But, where was Etheria when you needed them? Where were they when your sister-“

She’d had enough. She slammed her hand on the bar top, rattling the ice in her glass (when had she drained her drink?) and turned flashing, furious blue eyes onto the interloper next to her. 

“You don’t get to say her name! You’re not allowed to speak of her,” she uttered, filled with venom. “And, this part of the conversation here, this is where I start punching you in the neck.” He smiled at her, indulgent and condescending, as though she were nothing more than a kitten who had just done something amusing.

“I would like to offer you a job.”

She snorted loudly, disturbing a couple of other drinkers as she giggled. “Right. What is it?”

“Do you know anything about data chips?” 

“Err, sure. They’re small and have computer data on them,” she responded and his eyes flashed with fury at her glib response, which was her intention. Finally, a peek beneath this insincere mask he was showing her. 

“I have been working on a chip that is priceless and it’s been stolen from me.”

“Oh, ok. And you want me to find it for you?” 

“No,” he purred, pale, thin lips curling into a sneer, “I know who’s taken it. I want you to steal it back.” 

They shuffled over to one of the shadowed tables, away from the distinctly interested head tilt of the bartender and Hordak threw a stack of manilla files on the table. Reaching for the topmost, Adora skimmed the information, a curious eyebrow raised.

“You’re sure Brightmoon stole your chip?”

“I’ve been working on this chip for five years. One of my staff goes defects and then they announce an identical design? Really?” the disbelief was palpable.

“But stealing it back seems like a stupid risk. There are other ways..” she trailed off when he imperiously waved one hand at her.

“No. I must have that chip back by the end of the month. I have a meeting with Prime and, if I attend without that chip,” it seemed impossible, but his white skin blanched further and something akin to fear entered his eyes, probably the first genuine emotion he’d displayed, “then I am dead.”

He shuffled the folders some more, and thrust one towards her with vehemence. “Look at the people I’ve already hired. They’re the best.”

Skimming the papers before her, Adora’s eyes widened as she saw names and faces she recognised. 

“Lonnie? And Kyle? You have Kyle?”

“Is there someone better?”

“Seriously though, Kyle?” 

“As you can see, thieves I have. What I require from you on this task Adora, is to be the one honest person I can trust. To watch them.”

She sighed even further, feeling deep within her bones that she would, inevitably accept the offer. She’d always been a sucker for trust.

Thinking her undecided, Hordak sweetened the pot even further. “There is a bonus as well. Brightmoon works heavily with Eternia Enterprises, your sister’s previous employers.” Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her chest.

She forgot how to exhale in the moment.

“How badly would you like revenge on the company that let your sister die?” 

\--

Brightmoon Industries headquarters was a towering, pale monolith in the centre of the city. It was well over thirty floors high, sleek and covered in glass windows on all sides. The four of them met before the building before Adora branched off into the office across the street to set up a base of operations. On her way up to the deserted floor she’d chosen for her command, she thought of the three other members of her team tonight.

Kyle was a gangly thin blond hacker who had come onto the scene after stealing funds for his foster parent’s medical bills. When she’d arrived at his house, he’d been contrite and nervous, shaking like a leaf and, honestly, she’d felt bad once she’d turned him over to the Etherian authorities. 

Rogelio was a tall reptilian man with an intimidating lack of facial expression and a vocal muteness to match. He specialised in retrieving items and people, often through physical means and, bringing him to the authorities had left him with a small scar above his scaled eye ridge and her with a left wrist that sounded like a cement mixer on a rainy day. She’d earned a permanent memory of the encounter, alongside his respect.

Lonnie was a thief. Her dark skin was complemented by her brown hair in tight cornrows, her undercut neat and precise. She was lithely muscled, with a thrum of self-control that Adora could respect, even when she was hauling the woman into prison. She held herself in complete control of every motion and emotion, saying nothing with her grey eyes but there was an undercurrent of thrill seeking in her heists that impressed Adora.

There had been a frisson of surprise and, she hoped, respect, from the other three when she arrived that evening for their heist and she could tell from their widened eyes that they were not expecting it to be her as their fourth member. 

“Well, Adora,” Lonnie had smiled at her, “look who’s here to play the Black Queen instead of the White Knight for once.”

Their earpieces were in, courtesy of Kyle, who’d presented them with trembling hands, special adaptation made for Rogelio’s ear canal that was nestled behind one of his cheek frills. He’d turned an interesting shade of pink as he offered the pieces to everyone, embarrassed and proud all at once. 

From within her command centre, she watched as Lonnie took a swan dive off the roof fearlessly, almost sure her grey eyes were sharp with adrenaline; the rigging harnessed around her waist slowing her to the executive level. Her hair barely moved despite her being upside down as she cut a perfectly circular hole in the window, successfully breaching the office. 

Kyle and Rogelio had taken the chance to enter from the roof through an airduct, landing in the elevator shaft on top of the lift. Rogelio growled into his microphone and Kyle glanced nervously at him. 

“What’s taking her so long?” he muttered, twisting his fingers nervously, eyes darting within the shaft. He let out a squeal and grabbed onto Rogelio’s arm as the lift dropped suddenly. For his part, the reptilian man looked down at him but didn’t respond further. Kyle’s cheeks suffused an even deeper red when he realised that his hand didn’t span the diameter of Rogelio’s wrist fully. 

They left on the Research and Development floor, Kyle scrabbling in his bag for his password skimmer as Rogelio was his lookout. In his ear, he could hear Lonnie and Adora whispering back and forth about numbers of guards. 

“Where are the other guards?” Adora murmured, looking through the cameras they’d hijacked at the guard station.

“What other guards?” 

“There’s eight on the roster, but only four in the room.”

“Wha? How’d you know who’s who?” Lonnie’s voice, tainted with frank disbelief came down the line. Kyle tried his best to ignore it and focus on his task, but all the chatter was beginning to get to his nerves and make him twitchy, reminding him that he wasn’t behind his computer this time. 

“Count the haircuts,” Adora’s flat tone rang back, seemingly unaware that that wasn’t a normal thing to notice. Lonnie echoed that over the line and Rogelio rumbled in agreement. 

“It’s not that weird,” the blonde tried to defend herself but was interrupted by the ringing of a bell. An elevator arrival bell.

Security was on their floor. 

“Ok Rogelio,” Adora’s voice rang down the line, commanding and in complete control and here was the Adora that had once arrested Kyle. The Adora who was in full command of everything, a puppeteer with her hands on all the strings. The Adora who, inevitably, had twenty plans and contingencies, despite only telling them one, and who would get them out of this.

And the Adora who Kyle had, maybe, just a little bit, fallen for the day she arrested him.

“I want you to clear the floor. Use Kyle as bait if you have to,” she instructed, knowing without question that her request would be followed. In the time it took Kyle to look up, Rogelio had whispered into the shadows without a sound and he was totally alone. 

A wave of panic flowed over Kyle; there was a reason he mainly stayed behind computers, behind the safety of the internet and his monitors. He wasn’t built for this: he couldn’t manage conflict. Although his password skimmer only had three digits left, his watery eyes were darting to and fro and his heart rabbited from his chest. 

He turned to run and was met with a wall of guns from four security guards. With hands trembling faster than his heart, he raised them in the air and his bag dangled from his limp fingers. He dropped the black duffel, and, as he dropped the handles, Rogelio came from around the corner.

Slinking silently, with a soundlessness that belied his scaled form, he appeared in the midst of the security guards and, with swift lethality, he dropped all four of them in the time it took for Kyle’s bag to impact the floor. Kyle stared on, with shocked awe, and Rogelio slowly straightened, remaining mute but a satisfied twinkle entered his amber eyes. 

Move over Adora, Kyle was _sure_ he’d just fallen in love a little. 

A muffled chirp behind them jolted him back to the present and he saw that his skimmer had finally obtained the passcode. With a shuffle of mechanics, the door opened and revealed the twinkling servers within, surrounding a violet data chip that must be their prize. The chip itself was wired to the computers, with their systems running analyses on it and spewing data at a phenomenal speed. 

Kyle quickly connected his portable tablet to an outlet and downloaded all available information as Rogelio unhooked the chip. 

In their wake, they left several computer viruses, crashing the servers. 

Just as they raised a fist in triumph, Lonnie’s unimpressed tone came over the communicators. 

“Problem,” she drawled. “Those guards you dropped-“

“Actually, Rogelio did that,” Kyle piped in and received the most unimpressed eyebrow raise he’d ever seen from someone without eyebrows.

“-they reset the alarms above us. We can’t go up.”

Panic began to swirl within Kyle once more and Rogelio growled into the receiver. Despite none of them speaking his language, they all understood the context. 

“It’s no-one’s fault Rogelio,” Adora chimed in, trying to be reassuring.

“Sure it isn’t. Well, me and Rogelio are the ones with the product,” Kyle said and Lonnie angrily said that she had an exit.

“And I’m the one with a plan,” Adora overruled them all. “I know you children don’t play well together but quit your whining and head down. We’ll get out with the “burn scam”.”

All three of them breathed a sigh of relief at that. They’d gotten so used to working alone that they defaulted to solo mindsets when panicked or trapped. It was unusual to have someone overseeing the heist and controlling it, watching their collective backs.

It was nice, in some respects. 

When the elevator chimed their arrival in the atrium, they had donned the next aspect of their plan: they had changed into respectable business attire and Lonnie had armed herself with a crutch to accompany the prosthetic burn scars Rogelio had lain over her cheek and neck. 

The security guards in the entrance didn’t stand a chance against their acting: the shame welled up in them as they couldn’t help but stare unabashedly at Lonnie, Rogelio’s warning growl colouring their cheeks. Kyle uttered a disbelieving “seriously?”, with just the right amount of scorn and the guards scurried away, ignoring the car that pulled up at the entrance to collect them all. 

As they were speeding away, adrenaline running high from their success, Lonnie grinned over to Adora. 

“It’s fun being the Black Queen isn’t it?”

\--

She was awoken the following morning by an annoying chirp on her phone. Because she’d spent most of the night sober to deal with her band of thieves, she’d had a few to take the edge off. Just enough so that she could drift off to sleep and wouldn’t have to smell Mara’s jasmine perfume or see her white smile. Just enough that she wouldn’t have to see her washed out in the impersonal hospital bed, covered in sheets she’d hate, face screwed up in pain. She’d just about managed to doze into a dreamless, sleepless, restless haze when her phone messaged her. 

She ended up knocking all the contents of her dresser off in the process but retrieved her phone and read its single message with bleary eyes.

_Come to the Fright Zone. I’ll have your payment – Hordak_

When she reached the abandoned warehouse, she could feel the hair on her nape beginning to rise. Every instinct she had, honed by years of military service, was on fire, screaming at her that something was amiss. She stepped carefully into the building, skilfully dodging the puddles of water and instinctively avoiding the creaking floor panels. 

She heard the sounds of arguing as she got closer to the centre of the building, two voices shouting at one another with a background bass of growls. She could make out the sounds of Lonnie and Kyle, both becoming frenetic with emotion.

“So, where’s my money?”

“How should I know?”

“You’re the tech whiz here! You must have all the money!”

“Can you please just stop pointing the gun at me!”

As she turned the corner, she saw the trio in a three-way faceoff, with Kyle hunched over and his head cradled in his hands whilst Lonnie pointed a handgun at him. Rogelio was standing at the other point of the triangle, a matching gun in his hands, steady and fixed on Lonnie. 

Great. 

She cleared her throat and was met by six eyes and two guns pointed at her. She sighed, feeling like she was back in the military and slowly raised her hands in supplication. 

“What’s going on guys?” she asked, trying to keep her voice casual as she neared them. Kyle’s watery eyes looked up to her in relief as Lonnie narrowed hers.

“You’re the only one who’s played both sides. Did you rip us off?”

Adora paused minutely at that, her mind whirring with possibilities. “What? How could I rip you off?”

“Well, we haven’t been paid yet,” Lonnie continued, her voice growing colder with every word. “And that makes me angry.” In agreement behind her, with his gun completed unwavering on her, Rogelio growled.

“Well, I don’t have your money. In fact, the only reason I’m here is to get paid myself,” she said, and as soon as she said the words, sounded them out into reality, it hit her. 

“This was supposed to be a walk away! I was never supposed to see any of you again!” Kyle moaned into his hands, solidifying Adora’s stomach wrenching realisation.

“The only way to get us all here at once, would be to withhold payment. Otherwise, our paths would never cross again, would they?”

It dawned on their faces at once and there was a clamour for the exit. Lonnie and Rogelio both dropped their guns and started to sprint back to the exit as Kyle scrabbled behind them. Adora leapt over the small set of steps that he had stumbled on, grabbed him by his shoulder and threw him towards the door.

And, in that instant, the warehouse exploded into fire and ash. 

\--

As with every day, Mara’s was the first name on her lips as she woke. It didn’t matter how, suddenly or slowly, gradually or abruptly, her first and final thoughts were always of Mara. So, it didn’t surprise her when Lonnie told her she’d murmured her name in her sleep when she woke at the hospital. 

It wasn’t the first time she’d regained consciousness in hospital, the starched white sheets and industrial strength bleach leading to a certain dread she felt on waking that couldn’t be replicated anywhere else, but it was the first time she’d woken to find herself cuffed to the railings. 

Some quiet part of her mind, and she _knew_ who it was modelled after, thought that they should have at least bought her dinner first.

“What’s going on?” she murmured to Lonnie who was sitting in the chair by her bed, also cuffed, through her cotton filled mouth. As she tried to gather her wits about her, tried to gather her woolly thoughts into concrete form, Lonnie told her how the police had arrived as they were waking up and arrested them, pending their investigation. 

“Did they print you?” she asked, unconcerned about them sending her own prints as she knew she wasn’t in any database barring the military one. Lonnie’s dark eyes shone with sardonic irony as she waved her inked fingers at her. 

“If the police run those prints, I’m screwed,” a thin voice echoed through their ventilation shaft, Kyle’ voice piping up from the next room. “I can’t go back to jail! I barely survived the first time!”

“Calm down Kyle,” Adora tried to reassure him, but he began to spiral and she could feel the displeasure radiating from Rogelio who was trapped in the same room as him. 

“Seriously Kyle! Shut up!” Lonnie shouted. “If you panic any louder, you’ll screw up my getaway!”

“At least you have a getaway! I haven’t gotten that far yet and Rogelio is chained to the bed with four sets of cuffs!”

They bantered back and forth for a while and it was making the drill in Adora’s head pound with intensity. “Shut up, all of you!” she yelled, at her wits end and just wanting a moment of peace to try and figure this out. An abrupt silence fell over both rooms, even Rogelio stopped his constant growling, and she could almost feel all six eyes returning to watch her, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. 

Right, she thought, they had been printed and there would be a call incoming from the police with the results. If they couldn’t stop the call, perhaps they could speed up that process.

“Someone get me a phone!” 

\--

“Do I want to know how?” she asked, a little tentatively as Lonnie handed her a phone that had just been poked through the ventilation grate. There had been some retching sounds from Kyle, followed by a bustling medical assessment and then a phone was being poked through the grate. 

With a bend of her wrist that Adora would swear was anatomically impossible, Lonnie undid her cuffs and retrieved the phone with a flourish. She smirked widely, a small glint of pride in her eyes and a suggestive wiggle of her brows. 

Adora took a deep breath to centre herself and phoned the front desk.

“Hello, may I speak to the officer stationed there please? We’ve just gotten some of those prints back and they’re throwing up some flags.”

\--

Half an hour later, they were piling into Adora’s flat, kicking their shoes off and Rogelio called for the first shower to get bomb blast debris out of his scales. It had taken little convincing of the officer that Adora was a member of the military and was working undercover to bring down a crime ring. Once they’d spoken to her, she’d talked them into giving them a car so she could “take her perps in”. 

As she drove them away, a bilious taste rose in her mouth. With their previous antics, she could claim lack of, or at most, minimal involvement. She hadn’t actually stolen anything, just watched over the crew at Hordak’s request but, with that phone call, she had actively broken the law. The law she sought to uphold for so long.

She was a criminal now. 

Within minutes of entering her flat, Kyle had commandeered her laptop and was typing at speeds that made her uncomfortable. With Rogelio in the shower, Lonnie had claimed her kitchen and was making a bowl of cereal, filled from different boxes and crunching on it with malicious noise.

“I can’t believe he didn’t pay me!” she was grumbling around her mouthfuls. Kyle looked up in askance, disbelief running across his pale features. 

“Right. You’re not mad because he blew us up. You’re mad because we weren’t paid.”

“I take that personally.”

“And being blown up isn’t personal? There’s something wrong with you!” Kyle crowed back and then immediately cowered behind Adora when Lonnie focussed her gaze on him. 

(There was something _wrong_ with him because it stirred an emotion alongside fear that was decidedly not fear.)

“Alright children, calm down. There’s something wrong with all of you, even you Rogelio!” Adora said, ensuring to throw her voice loudly when she heard a rumble from Rogelio over the shower. She leant over Kyle’s shoulder as he typed away.

“I know you would have given the chip to Hordak as he wanted,” she said and his eyes lit up at her belief, “but did you take any copies of the data? Could we see what was so important to him?”

“Of course I didn’t Adora. That would be wrong,” he said, hair, face and eyes all angelic.

A disbelieving snort and a conspiratorial clap on his shoulder followed. “Show me.”

The information on the screen was meaningless to Adora, a seeming endless stream of data but it made Kyle gasp with surprise. Lonnie approached them, her cereal crunching annoyingly over Adora’s shoulder and she seemed unfazed by the dirty look Adora threw her.

“Ok, this is bad,” Kyle muttered, drawing Adora’s attention back to him. The chip was apparently a new computer processor, looking to revolutionise the technology world. It offered faster speeds at a fraction of the cost.

And it was manufactured entirely by Brightmoon Industries. 

A clip from the morning news flashed across the screen. In it, Glimmer Brightmoon appeared, perfectly pressed and put together, her lilac hair managing to look professional against her caramel skin and neither offsetting the displeased turn of her lips. She was discussing the loss of property, alongside the malicious attack on her company and how they would fully prosecute the offenders. 

“So, we weren’t stealing it back?” Lonnie asked, eyes flashing dangerously.

“No, you were just stealing it,” Adora answered, guilt gnawing at her innards. “If he hired you to steal it, you would have suspected the double cross. This way, you just saw someone in trouble.”

“And why didn’t you see the double cross coming then?”

“Because I’m not a thief.”

“Well, you weren’t. You are now. You’re gonna have to lose the separation between yourself and us.”

She paused for a moment. “Yes, it seems I am.”

She was now a thief, a criminal no matter what she did. But that didn’t mean she had to accept what Hordak had done to her. She didn’t have to remain a “bad” criminal.

What she was going to propose was for retribution; for a small piece of redemption, to wash as much filth from her hands as possible. True, she’d never be clean again, but she could lessen the dirt. 

“What do you say we ruin him?” Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio (who’d finished his shower and was a wall of intimidating scales standing behind the other two on the sofa) all seemed wickedly happy at this, especially at the promise of both revenge and payment but Kyle paused to ask her motives. He knew Adora wasn’t malicious and, despite her wickedly sharp mind, she was known for doing the bare minimum required to bring someone in. A fan of redemption, not revenge.

“He used my sister. That crossed a line.”

A flash of burning anger rose within her at the mere mention of her sister but she was quick to smother it. Later. She could stoke it later.

Right now, they needed a new player. Someone Hordak wouldn’t recognise. Someone who wouldn’t be linked back to them.

“We need Catra.”

“What’s a Catra?” came Kyle’s wavering voice as she went to grab her coat.

\--

“Come you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!”

Lonnie was watching something criminal; she was sure. It had to be illegal to be this bad at acting. They had bundled themselves into Adora’s eco-efficient car (ever the good girl) and came across a sparsely filled theatre. The costumes were decently made but nothing could redeem the acting of Lady Macbeth.

No amount of finery placed onto her dress or crown could distract from her undulating tail, twitching ears and wickedly sharp heterochromic eyes. No amount of flowery language could distract from the butchery of her tone and overacting of her expression. She was languishing on the stage, fully focused within the lights and loving the moment, despite the single patron in the audience actively wincing with every word. 

She looked across to Adora, who’d brought them to witness this massacre and saw her captivated, blue eyes unblinking on the actress as a delighted, besotted smile fixed across her lips. Adora looked as a child with a schoolgirl crush and Lonnie couldn’t help but wonder if this was Adora’s way of unconsciously sabotaging them; a final resistance to a life of crime.

Propose a plan for revenge and get them all, including Hordak, leaving herself squeaky clean and shining. 

But, more likely, she thought to herself with a loud sigh, she was now caught up in someone disgustingly in love and she would have to be a voice of reason. Sparing a scathing glance at Kyle and Rogelio, both of whom had faces that looked like they were slapped with wet fish, she thought back to their banter over the comms and revised that thought. 

She’d have to be the _only_ voice of reason. 

“She’s very awful,” she said, hoping to distract Adora from her covetous staring at the cat hybrid on stage.

“This is not her playhouse. She’s not meant for this theatre,” the blonde replied and strode off to the exit. A slow, completely non-sarcastic clap heralded the cat hybrid’s arrival after the play as Adora applauded her. The approaching woman smirked happily, genuine delight in her eyes as she saw the blonde and remarked that she was her only fan. 

Lonnie couldn’t help but agree with that. She certainly wasn’t going to forgive the mauling she’d just given one of the Bard’s greatest soliloquies. 

But, as the two women neared, it was difficult to tell who thought more highly of the other. Adora was staring at the cat hybrid as though she’d hung the stars, something almost reverent in her gaze, whereas the other was looking at Adora as though she _were_ the stars in the sky, luminescent and otherworldly. 

Lonnie heaved a large sigh as she resigned herself to being the voice of reason. Hopefully, this would be temporary. 

\--

“Sir, your nine o’clock is here,” his secretary chimed in from her desk, a mousey expression crossing his face as he frowned at her. He didn’t have any appointments this morning; he was going over his speech for the shareholders meeting and mentally preparing himself for his upcoming meeting with Prime.

Frowning, he turned his gaze to his office, where a cat hybrid was seated in a conservative maroon pantsuit with sharp black heels. Her heterochromic eyes were focussed on the dossier she held in her hands and he couldn’t help but approve of her professionalism, even if he was confused by her presence. She looked up at his entry to the room and stood, holding out a hand in greeting.

“Mr Hordak? Cy’ra Drulith, Crimson Commercial Technology Initiative.” 

He took her hand with pursed lips. “Government?”

“No, no,” the woman reassured, her accent rolling from her tongue hinting at a background from the Crimson Wastes, “private business consortium. We’re looking to encourage infrastructure development and economic renewal in the Wastes.”

His confusion must have shown on his face because she let out a little smile. “We look to keep graft and stealing manageable in the area.”

Here, he let out a smile and a snort. “Manage graft and stealing in the Wastes? Good luck. I don’t think I can help you; I don’t think anyone on Etheria can help you with that.” And he mentally dismissed the woman from his mind, attempting to focus on his upcoming meeting.

But, she was still standing before him, a smug smile on her lips as though she had all the answers and it was simultaneously intriguing and infuriating to him. 

“Why don’t we talk somewhere a little less formal? I’m sure you can help much more than you think and that can only lead to good things for you.”

She led the way from his office, with an airy “and Prime” trailing behind her.

Well, colour Hordak interested. 

\--

“She’s not awful,” Kyle muttered, mainly to himself, as he perched on the sofa in Adora’s apartment, laptop open before him. Adora beamed proudly over his shoulder.

“This is her stage. Catra is the finest actress in the world, as long as she’s breaking a law.”

Kyle’s eyebrows raised in disbelief but he couldn’t deny what was coming through his earpiece. Catra’s accent was accurate and her acting good, in complete contrast to what they’d seen the night prior. 

Adora reminded him to hack the secretary’s computer for the next stage of their plan and they heard over the comms the exact moment she decided to call for help.

Lonnie’s voice rang out, reeling off the speech Kyle had hurriedly told her that morning and he couldn’t help a glimmer of pride that his words were working. 

He also couldn’t help a glimmer of _something_ at the honey tone Lonnie was using. 

With small encouragement, the secretary left her desk for a coffee and Lonnie used that opportunity to slink into Hordak’s office, planting devices within.

Whilst she was in his office, Hordak was walking the waterfront with Catra. “I represent a group of investors looking to get into the tech industry. We’d be looking to purchase an industry’s amount of computer processors.”

He almost salivated at the proposal. Not only would he have the chip processor to present to Prime, but also a new client. He tried to play off his excitement. “Computer processors? I never mentioned anything about processors.”

“Hordak, you’re scheduled to speak at your shareholder’s meeting. You must have something come through R&D recently.”

“I think you know more about my life than I do,” he teased and watched as the other’s eyes lit up.

“I’ve done my homework.”

“Well, if we announce a new product, you’re welcome to order as many as you want,” and he watched as her eyes shuttered slightly. 

“We’d also like to manufacture them in the Wastes. More jobs. Build them in the Wastes, use them in the Wastes, sell the rest across Etheria.”

“That’s very ambitious. The Wastes’ manufacturing capabilities are a mess; do you really think you’d be able to do it?”

Cy’ra waved her hand imperiously at his question. “Never mind that. We can easily organise the money for the factories, if we know we’d be getting the contracts.”

He knew it was a trap, somehow. In the business industry, an opportunity like this doesn’t just gift itself; there’s always a catch. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you,” he said. He watched as Cy’ra’s eyes flashed at his response, a sharp rise of fury reflected in them before she seemed to make up her mind. 

“Fine. I’ll take my offer to Brightmoon.”

\--

Adora smiled, hearing Catra play Hordak like a flute. That was her girl; she knew exactly how to prod and rile someone into doing what she wanted, she knew exactly how to make someone do something and even give them the honour of thinking it was their idea. 

Both Kyle and Rogelio, who were sitting on the sofa, seemed in awe of Catra’s abilities and she couldn’t be more pleased. Lonnie was heading back after planting what they needed in Hordak’s office and soon, all her pieces would be in place.

Over the comms, she could Catra puppeteering Hordak just so and she couldn’t help but chuckle slightly. She imagined Catra’s answering smirk.

\--

Catra hammered the corners of her smirk into a genteel smile but couldn’t stop the flashing of her eyes. It gave her a predatory look, inviting and intimidating all at once and she could see how her statement had effected Hordak in the rapid purpling of his cheeks. 

Steamrolling onwards, she continued. “Brightmoon has a reputation for long investments, you don’t. They’re innovators. It’d probably be a better fit anyway.”

Spluttering, Hordak tried to regain the upper hand, saying that he knew she was playing him. Of course she was playing him, that was the idea, but the _extent_ to which he was being played, well…

That was something only Adora knew. 

Adora, with her need to be in control of everything and her perfectionist nature, had planned for Hordak’s every response. And it was part of her appeal, that control. It demonstrated a refinery that attracted Catra, even all those years ago. 

Usually, she liked to be in on Adora’s plans, liked to know all the aspects of them to play her own games more readily but this time, Adora’s end game was as much a mystery to her as it was to everyone else. 

Maybe, this time, Catra would get to see Adora perform. 

“I should hope so,” she replied, adding a little sneer to her voice and curl to her lips. Honestly, if he didn’t think she was playing him with that performance, then he wasn’t arrogant, he was an idiot. “Just think of it: millions in income, new investments, a lot of good press. Not only for your company but for you. There must be _someone_ that you want to impress now.”

She watched at the exact moment Hordak realised this, the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes as he agreed to the meeting. She answered with her own smirk and twinkling eyes. 

She was looking forward to the second act. 

\--

Back in Adora’s apartment, the team all gathered following the set up of the day’s events, sharing a round of beers around a table with a single cheque on it. 

They’d arranged for Hordak to have an initial meeting with the representatives of the Crimson Waste and Catra had wooed Tung Lashor and his associates before Hordak arrived. There was a little panic as they had to turn the office space around before Hordak entered. As Rogelio was drilling a new sign on the wall, Lonnie and Catra were releasing simultaneous yells of glee as they repelled down the stairwell. 

Catra had arrived in the lobby, flushed and eyes shining with glee as she shook hands with the blue haired CEO. As they took the more conventional route up to the office, in the elevator, she approached the main topic of the day. 

“The gentlemen bringing you this opportunity today to work with them, they’ll expect some form of compensation. Not a bribe, of course,” she said, eyes smirking wider than her lips could ever achieve. Hordak nodded sagely beside her.

“A finder’s fee,” he replied eventually. 

“Exactly.”

“I thought your job was to eliminate graft and stealing in the Crimson Waste?”

“No,” she purred, “my job is to make it manageable.”

Entering the office, she held open the door for him as Tung Lashor, an intimidating reptilian man approached Hordak to shake his hand. 

“Mr Hordak, we are honoured,” he hissed, his tongue rolling on his vowels slightly.

“Likewise. Getting in on the ground floor of something like this is a fantastic opportunity,” Hordak genuflected back. 

The meeting carried on without incident as the two discussed manufacturing space and factories that could be repurposed and, just as they were about to wrap, Catra cleared her throat delicately. 

“There is the issue of, the other matter,” she demurred, her voice light as though she was dancing around a subject. Tung Lashor nodded and pulled an envelope from his jacket which Catra brought round to Hordak. 

The paper inside read one million.

“Would that be agreeable?” she purred and Hordak smiled falsely and widely.

“Oh, I’m sure we can work something out.”

They’d dismissed the meeting swiftly from that point onwards, arranging a follow up the next day, and Catra all but leapt back to Adora’s apartment where she revealed the cheque she’d switched out. The long string of numbers was tempting, but she resisted taking it for herself and instead knocked back a swig of her beer with Lonnie. 

Given the anarchist nature of the two, Adora knew they would either get along like a house on fire or a mouse on fire. The two women were sat on the couch together, bonding over their mutual love of chaos and spite as Kyle stared on in horror, flinching in on himself more with every round of laughter they released as they likely plotted casual murder. Rogelio had partaken of one beer and then slunk away to the pool table in the corner, potting balls with disturbing regularity. 

Adora watched on from her perch on the window ledge. Like Rogelio, she’d cheerfully shared a beer with the rest of the team but had retreated into herself afterwards. She preferred to wallow in her demons alone. From her vantage point, she could see Kyle working his electronic magic, turning the cheque into stocks and the pleased curl of Rogelio’s lips as he decimated the table. She observed Lonnie and Catra giggling on the sofa, simultaneously fond and concerned at their camaraderie. 

Mara would have loved this, she thought. 

And then she climbed deeper into her bottle of scotch, trying to eradicate that thought. 

She was so caught up in her desire to drown that she missed Lonnie separating herself from Catra, the latter slinking to the pool table to join Rogelio in his game. Adora looked on as the cat hybrid picked up her own cue to join in, Rogelio’s eyebrow ridge indulgent.

“So, today went better than expected,” Lonnie opened, throwing back a mouthful of her own beer at Adora’s noncommittal hum, her eyes fixed on Catra. 

“You know,” the thief continued, decidedly looking towards Kyle, furiously typing in the corner, as she poked Adora, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were enjoying this.”

“You don’t know me,” Adora muttered bitterly and was taken aback by Lonnie’s snort.

“True, I don’t know you Adora. But I know dysfunction when I see it and you’ve bought real estate there.” She started to walk away when she paused, throwing a parting comment over her shoulder.

“And I may not know you, but someone here does. Perhaps they can help you, even if you won’t let the rest of us. Sometimes, bad guys are the only good guys you get.”

Adora, who was perfectly happy to drown her memories and her liver daily, thank you very much, stopped to think about this. Since Mara, she’d isolated herself, floundering in her ocean of alcohol, preferring to sink than swim to shore but maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to swim.

Perhaps, someone had thrown her a lifeline. 

Having finished with her game, Catra stalked over to her, eyes gleaming and concerned. 

“Everything ok?” she asked and Adora wondered if she could allow herself to say ‘no’.

\--

Hordak stood in the bowels of his office, a frown deeply etched on his white face. His assistant, who he could never remember the name of and just called him “Imp” on the best of days and “Nuisance” on the worst, was fluttering in his peripheral vision, like a pathetic hummingbird.

“This is insane,” came his annoying voice as he twitter pated behind him. “We are risking everything with this investment. Especially since we risked it all with Brightmoon already.”

Hordak’s frown deepened as he noticed a blinking red light coming from beneath his desk. He hurried to hush his useless assistant and pointed him down under the table. Coming back up, his assistant handed him the transmitter, continuing to blink merrily in his hands.

“What’s that?” 

“It’s a transmitter,” Hordak growled, unable to believe the impudence. “They’ve been listening to everything I’ve been saying.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think?” 

Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out a photo of Adora and Cy’ra, standing together and seemingly more than acquaintances. 

“Also, I did my homework. There is no Crimson Commercial Technology Initiative. They’ve been manipulating me and trying to extort me! No more. I’m on to them and it stops now.”

The rage started to build within him at the temerity these _hustlers_ had shown. “Call the authorities.”

\--

Before they left the apartment that morning, Adora and Catra shared a short, sharp embrace that the other three pretended not to see. They were dressed very differently, Catra in a blouse and dress pants, high court shoes on and artfully tousled hair. Adora was dressed like the others: dark sweater and trousers, sensible flat shoes and waiting jacket.

They would meet up after Catra had her third encounter with Hordak at the shareholder’s meeting and Adora’s mind was whirring.

All the pieces were set for the endgame.

\--

He wore a smug expression as he mingled at the shareholder’s meeting the following day. He’d presented the new data chip to the investors to raucous applause and received a personal meeting with Prime as a result. He’d entered the meeting, almost nauseated with nerves but left sycophantic with awe. Prime had _thanked_ him, told him that his innovation would revolutionise the company and promised him a promotion. 

“Congratulations, Hordak,” one of the investors said, shaking his hand. “It’s a good day for you.”

“It’s a good day for us all,” he parried. “The stock’s gone up by fifteen points since the announcement.”

“Really? I’ll be sure to pass it around.” 

He smiled even wider at that. Praise from Prime _and_ the investors? Borrowing the technology from Brightmoon was, perhaps, his greatest idea yet. Add on to that, he could see Cy’ra approaching, a content smile on her face and champagne in her hand and he filled with glee at the trap he had planned. 

He couldn’t wait to spring it on her and the rest of the degenerates who were hounding him.

“Well, well, well. Aren’t you the cat that got the canary?” she purred, smirking at her phraseology and Hordak grinned alongside her. Oh, if only she knew why he was so pleased.

“Does it show that much?”

“You’ve got a terrible poker face.”

A flash of rage crossed his features before he could school his face back to banality. Patience, she’d get her dues soon enough. In fact, lurking on the fringes of the party were his Crimson Waste clients. 

Perfect.

“Why don’t we finalise the deal now?” Cy’ra looked a little taken aback by his abruptness, just as intended. People were easier to manipulate when they were reactive, not proactive.

“Right now? You have the whole finder’s fee?”

“Absolutely. And, if we finalise it now, we can announce it with the new chip. We’ll make a bigger impact.”

“Uh, sure!”

“I’ll go get a conference room. You bring our guests. Go, go, go,” he shooed her away, back to the others and watched on as she spoke with them. A fiendish grin crossed his face as he turned to the conference room. Perhaps he should find a way to film this because it was going to be something he wanted to remember.

He ushered everyone into the room, shaking a few hands and faking geniality until the door shut behind Cy’ra. Showtime. 

“I assume we all know the terms of the agreement,” Tung Lashor said, looking directly at Hordak with his reptilian gaze. 

“The exact ‘terms’ are these,” Hordak sneered back, pressing the intercom to summon his surprise. In a flurry of shouting, guns and badges, the agents of the United Etherian Forces piled into the room, holding everyone frozen in their sights. The lead agent, a tall, muscled woman with hair shorn at the sides and fierce tribal scarring kept Tung Lashor and his associates cowed under her flinty stare. 

“Are you alright, sir?” she asked and Hordak straightened, brushing down his suit jacket. 

“Oh, I’m fine.”

“Yes, of course,” Tung Lashor responded at the same time, matching Hordak’s actions with the same commanding posture and poise. Hordak’s thoughts of how odd this was were interrupted when two agents approached him and began to pull his arms behind him, restraining him. 

“What is going on? What are you doing? They’re the criminals here-“ he tried to gesture to the others in the conference room but the agents holding his arms refused to let him do so, “-and they’re sitting right there! I demand to speak to Special Agent Huntara!”

The purple skinned woman smiled dangerously. “I’m Special Agent Huntara. Hordak, you’re under arrest for soliciting a bribe from these Crimson Waste officials.”

Hordak’s face turned whiter than it already was as he sputtered. “I’m not soliciting! They aren’t really from the Wastes!”

“Yes we are!” one of the men piped up, holding up an identification card that, indeed, stated he hailed from the Crimson Waste. “And your woman knew this when she contacted us.”

“My wom-“ his mind stuttered as he thought the events over. There was only one woman who was involved with both groups; a woman who was now, conspicuously, missing. “Cy’ra? Cy’ra doesn’t work for me! She works for them!”

“Ridiculous!” Tung Lashor slammed his large, scaled hand on the conference table, splintering it under the force. “She told us she worked under you!”

_Catra smiled widely as she shook hands with Tung Lashor and his affiliates. “Cy’ra Drulith, Horde Technologies. I work for Mr Hordak. He asked for me to be involved because I’m originally from the Wastes.” And with a courteous bow, she waved them into the office that proudly bore a plaque stating “Horde Technologies”._

“She definitely doesn’t work for me! How could she when she took me to your offices!”

“We do _not_ have any offices in this city!”

“Exactly!”

“We met her at Horde Technologies’ other office.”

_Walking down the corridor to the meeting, Hordak thought that there was a familiar smell of sawdust in the air. Perhaps they were doing renovations on another floor. As he followed Cy’ra and they turned the corner, there was a shiny plaque on the wall, proclaiming the offices “Crimson Commercial Technology Initiative”._

As it dawned on Hordak just how many strings Cy’ra had been pulling, he heard a commotion below. In the courtyard where the shareholders had gathered, mingling and congratulating themselves on a good investment, law enforcement agents were beginning to invade. Like a tidal wave, investors were dropping champagne glasses and canapes, whispered gasps of affront circling like a breeze. 

“Oh no, the shareholders,” Hordak whispered and he ran from the room to do damage control. During his flight, and he could hear the sound of footsteps behind him, he remembered something worse. “Prime.”

In the time it took for him to reach the courtyard, a wail of sirens had cut through the air, abruptly ending the string quartet and fuelling the fire that was the disaster of the day. 

“Everything’s fine! Go back to enjoying yourselves,” he tried to play it off but it didn’t take a genius to see the sweat beading on his hairline. “It’s just a, just a, a permit problem!”

There were quiet murmurings from the guests but these were quickly amplified when Huntara strolled out into the chaos, untouched and unperturbed, holding aloft her badge.

“Anyone else here involved in the bribe?”

Shocked gasps and whispers were heard and she looked on, stony faced as though she hadn’t just ruined Hordak’s name and career with that casual sentence. 

“Bribe?” came the voice of one of the investors.

“There is no bribe!” he was quickly losing his calm, cheeks suffusing red and eyes becoming wild. He needed to defend himself but the more he protested, the guiltier he sounded. Tung Lashor joined to add fuel to Hordak’s funeral pyre.

“I handed this man an envelope containing a cheque in a meeting.”

“I didn’t get a cheque! Nobody handed me a cheq-“ he stopped to think back to the meeting.

_Cy’ra walked to the other end of the table, taking the sealed envelope from Tung Lashor and bringing back to Hordak. The envelope that she told him would contain the request for the “finder’s fee” but had probably contained a cheque from Tung Lashor. He’d thought that the envelopes were slightly different colours when it was placed before him. She’d switched them!_

“This will look a lot better for you if you didn’t deposit that cheque,” Huntara said, a stern look on her face. “Do you still have it?”

“I never _got_ a cheque!” Hordak was unravelling, all his carefully laid plans. If the authorities looked deeper into the ‘missing cheque’, who knows how deeply they’d probe. Would they find Brightmoon’s tech?

As though voicing his worst thoughts, a second agent approached Huntara and mentioned that they were seizing his files and computer and searching his office. He couldn’t take it anymore. He snapped.

“Huntara! You can’t do this! I’m not a criminal here! The criminals are the ones from the Crimson Waste!”

He could pinpoint the exact moment his words processed for Huntara as her face became frozen, making her previous stony countenance seem welcoming. “So the people from the Crimson Waste are criminals, huh?” Here, she leaned forwards, towering over him and she smiled a venomous smile. 

“I’m from the Wastes.” 

It was only four words but in that sentence, Hordak knew there was no way he was going to recover from this. Prime wouldn’t support him, he’d cut him loose like an errant animal. The shareholders wouldn’t support him, not with the news vans quickly converging on them like vultures. 

And Huntara would push for him to be punished as much as possible, if the poisonous gleam in her eye was any indication. 

He sighed, defeated and threw back a glass of champagne before walking to his office. Might as well sit it out at ground zero. 

\--

There was a flurry of activity around his Imp as he returned to the office. Scattered on the floor were the remnants of masses of papers, shredded beyond repair, as his assistant and his assistant’s assistants were held at gunpoint by the agents. They hadn’t managed to destroy all the evidence in time and Hordak knew it, looking into the destroyed eyes of Imp. 

Screw the champagne. He needed hard liquor for this. 

\--

In an abandoned factory, Glimmer Brightmoon stood waiting. She’d received a missive to meet someone here and they’d written that they could retrieve her stolen tech. Needless to say, she was interested. 

So, she was standing with her pumps submerged in murky water and irreparable as the water started to creep up the hemline of her pants and cursing everyone she could think of. She heard the sound of approaching footsteps and looked up to see a blonde woman dressed in all black, sensible boots on her feet and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She looked into the woman’s blue eyes and was immediately glad she took the instruction to come alone seriously.

This wasn’t someone who was messing around. 

“I came alone,” she said and the woman’s face brightened, transforming her from warrior to princess in an expression. 

“I can see that. Thank you, Ms Brightmoon,” she said genuinely. She approached Glimmer, getting within arm’s length and continued. “I understand that your research was completely wiped out.”

As Glimmer’s face was purpling with rage at the comment, the woman continued onwards. “I have complete copies here on these hard drives, along with absolute proof they were on Horde Technologies’ computers.” She held forward two hard drive, appearing as the Holy Grail to Glimmer and she grabbed at them, eager to be back in possession of her research. 

“That should be good for a couple of lawsuits, right?”

Although pleased beyond reason to have her research back, something wasn’t ringing right for Glimmer. She didn’t get to her position in the company through nepotism; she’d earned it because she was a shrewd business woman. Why was the blonde woman giving her these?

“And what do you want in return?”

The blonde smiled widely, showing her teeth in a gesture that was equal parts friendly and predatory. “You drop the investigation of all parties involved with the original theft.”

“You! It was you!” 

“Well, not me exactly, but I’m not going to disclose who.”

Glimmer frowned deeply. She didn’t want criminals to go unpunished but, if she did drop the investigation, she’d get to stick it to Horde Technologies and get her property back. Surely that balanced out?

“Fine. No charges. Nothing on you or your people.”

“Great! Well, goodbye then!”

As the blonde turned to walk away, Glimmer called to her back. “Wait! Don’t you want money or something?” 

And the words echoed behind her as the blonde kept walking. “This particular project has an alternative revenue stream.”

\--

Hordak’s life was over. He would never work again and, if the rumours surrounding Prime’s severance package were to be believed, he would never live in this city again. He was drowning in his scotch, determined to at least be so drunk he couldn’t feel Prime’s retribution, as two agents were threading their grubby fingers through his personal files. 

On the television, the stock market was displayed and the previous fifteen points that he’d been so proud of were eclipsed by the complete crash of his stock. His company was gone. His money was gone. His name was in the mud.

He was ruined. 

His phone rang and he absentmindedly answered it, hoping against hope it would be an alarm clock waking him from this terrible dream. 

“You know, you should have just paid us,” Adora’s voice purred down the line and he sat up straight upon hearing it. He should have known that _she’d_ be behind this. Who else could orchestrate such disaster?

“But I found your transmitter,” he whined plaintively only to hear her answering chuckle.

“You found the one with the blinking light. Yeah, we wanted you to figure some of it out. Then, we just gave you what you were expecting.”

He saw red and almost crushed his tumbler in his hand as he hissed into the phone. “I am Hordak! I am going to beat this! Everything you’ve done is a whisper campaign.”

“True, but aren’t you forgetting about the bribe?”

He scoffed. “Who cares? I didn’t get any money, you can’t prove anything!” Just as he said that, one of the agents behind him found fistfuls of money behind his art canvas. He blinked in horror. He didn’t put that there!

He must have said that out loud, as Adora’s scorn filled voice filled his ears. “Of course you didn’t. We did. With the agents coming in and out of your office all day, it was easy for Lonnie to plant the cash.”

A brief pause. “Well, some of the cash. The rest was used to buy your stock.”

Hordak’s breath caught in his throat as the extent of Adora’s plan was unveiled. “You see, if a company’s stock price falls ten, fifteen percent in one day and you see it coming, you sell short and you make money. If it’s going to fall more than thirty percent, like Horde Technologies, you can make a shattering amount of money. We didn’t need the authorities to show up and take you to jail; we just needed them to show up and take boxes out of your office, all day, in front of cameras. Scaring your investors was the point, you going to jail is a bonus.”

All he could hear was his heartbeat in his ears. There was a faint ringing and he wasn’t sure if it was an ongoing alarm, his blood pressure or the knolls of death’s bells. In the distance, he thought he heard Adora warning him to keep his mouth shut, or she wouldn’t be so nice next time and he believed it. 

He knew, from the fact that he was, hopefully, going to jail before Prime could get to him, that she was being nice. If she wasn’t, the agents wouldn’t have found the money and he would have been left to Prime’s tender mercies.

Even when she was trying to be the bad guy, she was still the good guy inside. 

\--

Hanging up the phone, Adora walked back to the gathered criminals. Catra had changed out of her conservative blouse and pants into something more befitting of her: skin tight jeans and a leather jacket with sunglasses. Despite it being sunset and obnoxious. 

Adora thought she looked lovely. 

“Nice job everyon-“ she started, glancing down at the piece of paper Kyle handed her. “Whoa!” 

Everyone else gasped in amazement as well. Kyle had handed each of them a cheque with their cut on it and it was an astronomically large number. Kyle mumbled, looking to the floor, that there had been a cross over in the stock market and that valuation carried over but his explanation was cut off by a shocked yelp when Rogelio lifted him in a hug, spinning him in the air. 

His face turned from pink to puce when Lonnie joined in, leaping into Rogelio’s arms, laughing uproariously that this was “the score”. Like proud parents, Adora and Catra looked on, fond smiles on their faces as the others let loose.

Eventually, arms still wrapped loosely around each other, Kyle piped up. “You know, I’ve never had this much fun on a job before and I have focus issues but you kept me focussed, Adora.”

“It’s a walk away, Kyle,” Adora said, knowing where this was going but smiling along with them.

“I wanna know how long til you fall apart and kill everyone,” Lonnie stated bluntly, smirking widely like she was just waiting for popcorn to go with her show.

“Oh, I’m touched,” the sarcasm in Adora’s voice was palpable. 

Rogelio growled in agreement and Adora gave him a betrayed look in response. 

“You can pick the jobs that we do,” Catra said, slipping her hand into Adora’s with a reassuring squeeze. 

“All I want for my job is to help people. I find bad guys,” she whispered, feeling her emotions start to well up and the others approached them, closing their little circle.

“Then we help people and find bad guys,” Lonnie stated matter of factly, “What’s it gonna be Adora: Black Queen or White Knight?”

\--

The woman before them was inconsolable in her tears, crying loudly with her grief. The man beside her was much more stoic, bearing his sadness in a manner that only a father could. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to cry at you,” the woman all but sobbed, her handkerchief a sodden mess.

“Don’t worry, take your time,” Kyle said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. He pulled a fresh handkerchief from his black suit jacket pocket, handing it to the woman. The man gave him a grateful look. 

“She was only seventeen!” came the answering wail.

“We know,” Lonnie said, standing behind Kyle but dressed in a similar sharp black suit. 

“They killed her! They said it was an accident but they killed her! I want them hurt!” the plea reached a tone and pitch that only the bereft could reach and Rogelio, dressed identically to the other two, growled in agreement with a nod of his scaled head. 

“We can’t pay you, we don’t have any money,” the man said, eyes daring to hope but voice filled with rationality. Catra snorted from where she was sitting next to Kyle, her black suit on but paired with ridiculously high heels and tie draped around her neck. 

“We don’t need payment; we work on an alternative revenue stream.”

In his last grasp at rational straws before he allowed himself to dream of vengeance, the man said: “I don’t understand, the judge said we couldn’t appeal. What’re you going to do?”

Smiling reassuringly, Adora leaned forwards, her white suit making her stand out in a sea of black. She was the epitome of angelic innocence: white fabric, white pumps, blonde hair, but her face spoke of righteous fury. 

“People like that,” she began and everyone in the room knew or could tell that she was speaking from experience, “corporations like that, they have all the money, they have all the power and they use it to make people like you go away. Right now, you’re suffering under an enormous weight and we provide-“ she paused to find the right word.

“We provide leverage.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! 
> 
> R&R 
> 
> BYB x


End file.
